Next weekend, 24 Warwick Lacrosse players will be taking part in the Helly Hansen Triathlon up in the Lake District. This involves a 10km run, followed by a 25km bike ride and a 1.5 km kayak route, with various assault courses in between. Not for the faint hearted, this certainly is a massive challenge! Having set a target of £1200, with 2 weeks left to go, we have already smashed this. Network Rail have agreed to match £1200 of our money and therefore we look to set to raise well over £2500 by the end of the event.

Our chosen charity this year is the Eve Appeal, which funds vital research into gynaecological cancer (www.eveappeal.org.uk). With the upcoming Helly Hansen challenge, and £834.76 already raised from a Top Banana collection and charity circle, we are set to hit £3500 in total for charity this year, a tremendous amount in just two terms. With both our men’s and women’s team battling promotion, all players have been very generous with their time in raising as much as possible for this worthwhile cause. We also don’t use any fundraising events to subsidize costs to go on tour; everything we have raised and will raise goes directly to the Eve Appeal.

Our charity work has not stopped here. For the first year ever we have managed to lay the foundations for a ‘lacrosse in schools’ programme. Considering that lacrosse isn’t a sport present in most state schools, we pushed hard to find schools willing to let us come in and coach for free, to give children a chance to experience this fantastic sport. We have received a very positive response from Tile Hill Girls’ School where we have coached every Friday since the start of term. We hope to use this as a platform for future seasons, as over 15 players now have a full CRB check that will enable them to coach in any school in Coventry and Warwickshire next year.

Plans are also in place for a summer ‘Lacrosseathon’ next term, which will be a 7 hour non-stop lacrosse game on campus. We will again try to raise as much money for the club charity as possible, whilst inviting local schools, Warwick staff and students to come and watch and participate in the event.

It has been a busy two terms for Warwick Lacrosse and the transformation in our charity work is clear to see. If you could possibly publish any aspects of this information, with details of our triathlon, we would greatly appreciate the publicity before next weekend. Any donations are welcome.

www.justgiving.com/warwicklaxchallenge

Published on page 21 of the newspaper in Volume 32, Issue 11.